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MORE BORING CANADIANS: Another article on Canada’s efforts to develop a robotic drilling system for use on a future mission to Mars.

I sat in on a presentation on a similar topic (surface core samplers) at the 2001 Convention. It’s truly impressive what the folks involved have managed to squeeze into such compact spaces, and how they’ve designed single tools that can perform a half-dozen different operations (for instance, the surface sampler can take core samples, or score a rock to examine what’s beneath the exposed surface, or drill out material and sample the dust, etc.).

Note that the Canada drill is designed to work without the use of water for cooling and lubrication purposes. It’s hard to imagine that that kind of technology wouldn’t find a use in drilling operations on Earth, particularly in remote or arid locations — one more spinoff from space.